


Better a Dish

by somethingclever



Series: A Happy Wife is a Happy Life [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Feminization, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingclever/pseuds/somethingclever
Summary: Steve grew up and lived by the Proverb, 'better a dish of bitter herbs where there is love, than a fattened calf with hatred.'  He'd served countless meals made of not much more than love and water.  But now, here, in this future, he could safely say better hatred, even, thanalone.





	Better a Dish

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to FreyaS, as always, for cheering me on and giving this a look-over.

The door closed behind the nice agent Fury had palmed him off on, the latch snicking closed, leaving Steve alone in the middle of goddamned nowhere in a safe house he could tell was Spartan to the point of being shameful, by the way the agent behaved, but to him was damned luxurious.  
  
If Bucky were there, they’d turn to each other and Steve would say...  
  
“I’ll see what we got for supper, huh, baby?” He whispered to thin air. He turned towards the kitchen, wishing for the swish of a skirt to twirl with him, to feel Bucky’s eyes following him and he’d say-  
  
He’d say-  
  
No one answered him.  
  
No one would, because, well. Alone. In a cabin. In the woods. In the middle of nowhere.  
  
Everything had gone so fast. Bucky, Schmidt, waking up- three nearly sleepless days of assessment and then his psychiatrist- who he talked to sometime on day... two? Hard to say when you can’t see the sun, yes, day two, they smiled and said he’d need some time to process.  
  
And here he was, processing.  
  
He opened a cupboard to see what kinda K rations or whatever the future held for him, and his breath caught in his throat. There was- was so much food. He was more used to his stores looking more like Old Mother Hubbard's bare cupboard than this, this  _embarassment of wealth._  Steve grew up and lived by the Proverb, 'better a dish of bitter herbs where there is love, than a fattened calf with hatred.' He'd served countless meals made of not much more than love and water. But now, here, in this future, he could safely say better hatred, even, than alone.   
  
Numbly, he turned from the cabinet to the icebox, and it was full, too, with a note that all he had to do was press these buttons and a ‘drone’ would deliver more of the perishable goods, and...  
  
He sat down on the floor and wept, ugly, heaving sobs, curling in on himself like a pillbug.  
  
Midas must have felt like this, to have everything and nothing, to be starving surrounded by riches, to have such love and have it torn away, replaced by cold, unfeeling prosperity.  
  
He could have made any meal he and Bucky had ever dreamt of on those long hungry afternoons after school, or when work wasn’t so plentiful. He could feed every Barnes ever made and his own Mam besides, Sunday food, hell, _Christmas dinner_ \- there was a whole chicken in there- and here he was.  
  
Alone.  
  
Not even a neighbor to invite in for a little bite or sup.  
  
“I want to go home,” he choked into his hands, scrubbing at his face to get the tears off his skin, “Oh Buck, you’d love it, and I-“  
  
His eyes fell on the cupboard again, still open, shiny clear packages of plastic showing off the food inside. He stood up, forcing his knees to hold his weight, feeling as dizzy as when he’d had a double ear infection and he’d gotten his bell rung, to boot. “I’ll make us some dinner,” he muttered to himself, “You’d want me to. You rotten bastard, what kinda husband you think you are, huh? Leaving me like this? I’d sooner a’ died with you,” he cursed as he got out onions and potatoes and dug through the ice box for beef, “But I didn’t. And I’m making dinner, and- and- I’ll make breakfast, too, and lunch, and someday, I guess it’ll end.” He wiped his eyes and his nose and then his hands on his pants, “And this is goodbye. Okay, I can’t be- nobody knows about-“  
  
He raised his head and stopped himself, the words dying on his lips.  
  
He was alone, nobody to hear him. He could talk to himself, say anything, but-  
  
Old habits died hard, and he’d grown up with thin walls and open windows. Never knew who might hear somethin’.  
  
And now, in the future...  
  
He didn’t know what it might look like, but he would lay money on the table- his last dime and his mother’s rosary- saying that someone, somehow, was listening.  
  
And not like the nuns said God did, or his Mam said the dead could. No, somehow somebody alive could, and even now...  
  
They’d said it was okay, being a fai- gay, and ne-Black, said women had rights, and the last two the doc had said all casual, and then somebody tacked on the last one, an afterthought, and Steve could see *something* flick in the woman’s eyes, and he’d nodded as if all those words were just fine by him and meant nothing to him personally, at all, no sir, he was just reading this very long and informative list of Things To Never Even Think Of Saying.  
  
Well, he’d add ‘I was Bucky’s wife’ to that list of things that could never come over his tongue, a happy and sweet ending to a long list of wrongs the future righted.


End file.
